Newsletter for games through 7-26-2015

TRADE DEADLINE:  Is the lineup deadline for next week.

PERFECT GAME!  Buddy Baumann of KCR threw a no-hitter against PIT on 7/20/2015….his real ERA is 3.43 and his real WHIP is 1, but it all came together in one game for him…add him to the list with Phillip Humber and Dallas Braden of “guys you didn’t think could ever do it, but have a perfect game.”  Josh Clark has been doing something to store up good karma…congrats to him and his Royals!

COMMENTARY: Best week went to the Arizona Dbacks at 6-1, pushing Rob Perkins’ team into positive WOR territory…a big reason was AJ Pollock, who hit .536…the opponents were Milwaukee and Miami, both positive-WOR teams…Cardinals didn’t lose a game and are now 1 back…Cubs went 4-2 and have a solid lock on 3rd…Washington gained ground in the NL East…NL West is a collective +23 WOR…AL East has Baltimore, Toronto, and the Yankees all within 2 games of each other…Yanks are in 3rd but had the best week in division…Detroit and KC both had winning weeks, with Detroit picking up an extra win, thus half a game, and moving to within 4…Seattle had the only winning week in the AL west and crept to 1.5 ahead of Houston…Anaheim is still within striking distance…Cincinnati and San Francisco look like the monsters of the NL (although I count 6 teams with a chance to take the league championship)…the Giants have the better overall record but the Reds are 2 games ahead in WOR…Jim Casey’s Giants have done it with something like 26 trades; Ralpahel Malveaux of the Reds has made only 3…the Top 6 batting average leaders are all in the NL; 2 of them play for AL teams in real life…Billy Hamilton of the Reds leads the ASFBL in stolen bases, 15 ahead of Jose Altuve…The Reds have 3 of the top 15 RBI guys….the Nationals are the only other team with 2…Cleveland moved into positive WOR territory this week…AJ Burnett (an ASFBL Giant) has tied Max Scherzer with 17 wins…Zack Grienke has a 1.70 ERA, best in the league…only 20 pitchers have an ERA under 3.00….three of them pitch for the Cubs….two pitch for Colorado…David Ortiz hit 5 HR…so did Derrick Deitrick of Miami….Jose Bautista hit only .217 last week, but had 9 RBI on 2 HR…

FEATS AND FAILURES:

Zack Godley of ARI had 11 strikeouts against MIA on 7/21/2015
Randal Grichuk of STL had 6 RBI against CWS on 7/21/2015
Ryan Buchter of LAD had 10 strikeouts against ATL on 7/22/2015
Carlos Martinez of STL had 10 strikeouts against CWS on 7/22/2015
A.J. Pollock of ARI had 5 hits against MIL on 7/23/2015
Pedro Alvarez of BOS struck out 4 times against HOU on 7/23/2015
Clayton Kershaw of LAD had 11 strikeouts against NYM on 7/23/2015
Ender Inciarte of ARI robbed 3 hits against MIL on 7/24/2015
Jason Pridie of OAK robbed 3 hits against SFG on 7/24/2015
David Ortiz of SEA hit 3 home runs against TOR on 7/24/2015
David Ortiz of SEA had 7 RBI against TOR on 7/24/2015
Greg Garcia of STL struck out 4 times against ATL on 7/25/2015
Ervin Santana of MIN had 10 strikeouts against NYY on 7/26/2015

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Newsletter for games through 7-19-2015

TRADE DEADLINE:  Only 2 more weeks to work out deals; no trades after the August 4 lineup deadline.

COMMENTARY:  Each league had 3 series sweeps; in the NL the victors were all in the east, while the AL more judciously spread them out between the Yankees, Chisox, and Angels…The Yankees swept the Mariners, and Houston took advantage and picked up 2 games to make it a 1-game race…Steve Horak’s Chicago team did it’s work against the division-leading Royals, making it a pretty impressive start to the second half….Roughned Odor hit .818 in the short week…I don’t think I’ve ever seen an average that high on the players of the week page…three other players hit better than .600….Jake Arrieta of the Cubs pitched 8 and 1/3rd scoreless innings, probably the best start of the short week…28 teams turned in lineups, taking advantage of the opportunity to reset the rotation…Atlanta has the longest average player name at 12.15….Christian Betancourt leads the league with 20 letters, tied with Jarrod Saltalamacchia….nobody has more vowels than Emilio Bonifacio…or fewer than Tony Zych (“y” doesn’t count)…Boston is the most vowelriffic team, with 38% of all the letters in player names being either a, e, i, o or u….Jon Jay has the shortest name in the league, and after him there are 21 players who only have 7 letters in their name…there have been 17 trades this year where neither player has made any contribution to their new team (although in some cases that’s because they were immediately re-traded)…the Yankees are the only team who have two players with double-digit saves (Betances and Miller)…Chapman leads the ASFBL with 30 saves; only 9 other players have more than half of that…I think that makes Chapman a better bullpen than 21 other teams…Detroit (Hamels and Price) and the Cubs (Arreita and Hammel) are the only two teams with 2 players in the top-13 for innings pitched; the key is apparently having one pticher with the phoneme “Ham” in their name…Grienke has the lowest WHIP in the league…Smardzija and Scherzer have the fewest walks per inning….Cruz, Harper, and Texieria all have 38 homers…Harper has 19 more RBI than Cruz and 20 more than Texieria….19 teams are within 10 games of first…

Newsletter for games through 7-12-15

METS MUSINGS: Thanks to Josh Clark, who sympathetically pointed out that Met pitchers are hitting better than Met bench players this year…it did make the evil side of my brain ponder whether I could add a function to have pitchers pinch-hit for position players….and Kirk Nieuenhuis, who apparently reads the ASFBL blog, found serious motivation in the words and — for those who missed it — hit 3 homers in last Sunday’s game….he had 4 hits on the season going in…finally, I sent Matt Kemp to Rick Wynne on the theory that he’s not that good, he has to hit in Petco, and he’s apparently dating Khloe Kardashian….as usual, Rick is 2 steps ahead of me; in the 5 games since he’s hitting .429 with 2 HR….

TRADE DEADLINE: Will be the lineup deadline on August 4.

COMMENTARY: Four NL teams went 5-1 last week, none more impressive than the Cubs who had only rivalry games, playing the Cardinals and Chisox…and Jeanine had to use 2 computers on 3 wonky internet connections to get her lineup in this week…the Rockies continue to pound away with another 5-1 week and a +10.5 WOR mark, and couldn’t gain on the Giants who were also 5-1…The Dodgers would lead 4 divisions but are 8.5 behind the Giants….this is a great year so far, even by Rick Wynne standards…the Padres were 4-2 this week; the losing team scored exactly 2 runs in every game, except for the game the Pads won 2-0…Seattle was the only 5-win team in the AL…Minnesota had a winning week against the East-leading Orioles and powerhouse Tigers…Tampa and Toronto took advantage of the opening in the AL East…Cleveland posted a second-consecutive winning week…the A’s scratched their way into 3rd place…The Reds and Giants are each leading their divisions, have the top 2 records in the league, and are 1 and 2 in the WOR standings, separated by all of a half game…Toronto leads the ASFBL with 422 runs scored, and nobody else has cracked 400…Dodgers have the most HR with 132…Detroit has the best team batting average at .288…Dodgers and Giants are 1 and 2 in team ERA, separated by .01…the Miami bullpen has allowed only 5 of 60 inherited runners to score…Cleveland pitchers have 846 strikeouts; next closest is 714….Cubs’ and Mets’ pitchers are tied for fewest walks allowed…Josh Donaldson had 11 RBI last week…Brandon Belt hit .458….Cleveland pitchers with the first name Cody and a last name that started with “A” (Allen and Anderson) combined for 24 scoreless innings (only allowed 4 hits)…I’m re-naming my son Cody Asfbl…enjoy the All-Star break! Only 24 more hours of baseball-free time for those of you showing withdrawal symptoms…

FEATS AND FAILURES:

Max Scherzer of WAS had 10 strikeouts against CIN on 7/6/2015
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 10 strikeouts against SFG on 7/6/2015
Kyle Gibson of MIN had 10 strikeouts against BAL on 7/7/2015
Tyson Ross of SDP had 10 strikeouts against PIT on 7/8/2015
Johnny Cueto of CIN had 10 strikeouts against WAS on 7/8/2015
Aramis Ramirez of MIL robbed 3 hits against LAD on 7/10/2015
Michael Taylor of PIT struck out 4 times against STL on 7/10/2015
Max Scherzer of WAS had 10 strikeouts against BAL on 7/11/2015
J.J. Hardy of BAL robbed 3 hits against WAS on 7/11/2015
DJ LeMahieu of CWS had 5 hits against CHC on 7/11/2015
Jake Odorizzi of TBR had 12 strikeouts against HOU on 7/11/2015
Jay Jackson of SDP had 13 strikeouts against TEX on 7/12/2015
Delino DeShields of TEX struck out 4 times against SDP on 7/12/2015
Jose Fernandez of MIA had 13 strikeouts against CIN on 7/12/2015
Joey Butler of TBR struck out 5 times against HOU on 7/12/2015

Newsletter for games through 7/5/2015

COMMENTS: The Giants were the only team to run the table in the NL; the Tigers did the same thing in the AL….Detroit is making it a race in the central….the Giants are now up 7 in the NL West; Ballingall’s Dodgers are a real-life first-place team and +5 WOR but are still in second place…Reds are 1 game up on the Giants in the WOR standings…Tigers are making it a race in the AL Central, pulling to within 5.5 of the Royals…Cleveland also went 6-1 and pulled within a half-game of the real team; if they keep this up they could be within striking distance of the playoffs by the trading deadline…the Brewers went 5-2; maybe Chris Zewiske made himself manager as well as GM…Nobody in either the AL or NL eastern divisions had a winning record…Seattle broke the logjam in the AL west by going 5-1 and moving a game up on the Astros, who were 4-2…Anaheim also went 4-2, and some of those bats are surely due to keep adjusting up…Cubs and Cards each went 4-2, and they play each other to start next week…Philadelphia is a tough team to inherit, but Kerry Wildes’ Phils took 2 of 3 from Danny Wildes’ Braves last week…every game in the series was decided by 1 run…Mark Texiera is on pace for 70 fantasy HR; we might have to ask Mark Yee to take a PED test…AJ Ramos of Miami has 25 saves (Chapman leads ’em all with 27)…the NL west houses 3 of the top 8 runs-scored leaders (Goldschmidt, Frazier, Pederson)…Altuve is the only non-slugger in the top 10….Scherzer is an early ASFBL Cy Young candidate, what with leading the league in ERA, wins (15), and walks per inning….Chris Archer has 1 more strikeout…Keuchel has pitched one-third of an inning more …At the halfway point, 8 NL teams are within 10 games of a playoff spot…so is the entire AL East…and the entire AL west…

FEATS AND FAILURES:

Prince Fielder of TEX had 5 hits against BAL on 6/29/2015
Corey Kluber of COL had 12 strikeouts against OAK on 6/29/2015
Adam Duvall of OAK struck out 4 times against COL on 6/29/2015
Marcus Semien of OAK struck out 5 times against COL on 6/29/2015
Rubby De La Rosa of ARI had 10 strikeouts against LAD on 6/29/2015
Ryan Braun of MIL had 6 RBI against PHI on 6/29/2015
John Lamb of KCR had 10 strikeouts against HOU on 6/29/2015
Alex Presley of HOU struck out 4 times against KCR on 6/29/2015
Chris Dominguez of CIN struck out 4 times against MIN on 6/30/2015
Cameron Maybin of COL struck out 4 times against OAK on 6/30/2015
David Price of DET had 12 strikeouts against PIT on 6/30/2015
Jimmy Nelson of MIL robbed 3 hits against PHI on 7/1/2015
Carlos Peguero of TEX struck out 4 times against BAL on 7/2/2015
Manny Banuelos of ATL had 15 strikeouts against WAS on 7/2/2015
Chris Sale of CWS had 11 strikeouts against BAL on 7/3/2015
Chase Bradford of NYM had 13 strikeouts against LAD on 7/4/2015
Joc Pederson of LAD struck out 4 times against NYM on 7/4/2015
Lance Lynn of STL had 10 strikeouts against SDP on 7/5/2015
Mike Trout of LAA had 6 RBI against TEX on 7/5/2015
Andrew Heaney of KCR had 12 strikeouts against MIN on 7/5/2015
Zack Greinke of LAD had 10 strikeouts against NYM on 7/5/2015
Chris Dominguez of CIN struck out 4 times against MIL on 7/5/2015

Newslettter for games through 6-28-15

TRADES: We hit our 100th trade this week, and as we approach the midpoint it might be fun to start thinking about how they’ve panned out.  I came up with a rough index of ASFBL productivity (see below) to evaluate the performance of each player on their new team after the trade.  Sometimes the evaluation is tough because one player is immediately sent somewhere else, but its a kick to think about anyway.

The biggest trade, in terms of the productivity each team got, was actually the first.  The number after the player name is the total value figure and they are totaled at the end of each line. Here’s how the players did for their new teams after the trade:

BOS gets:Jason Kipnis 79 (.341/6 HR/.510 SLG/6 net def/314 AB) Carlos Santana 7 (.215/9 HR/.355 SLG/2 net def/251 AB) Total: 86
CLE gets:Mike Napoli 0 (0 AB) Dustin Pedroia 56 (.313/15 HR/.522 SLG/5 net def/291 AB) Total: 56

Boston looks a little ahead on the face of it, but Napoli was also packaged to land Carter and Wojciehowski.

The biggest net gain went to Colorado in trade 34, and its almost entirely due to Chris Archer:

COL gets:Chris Archer 200 (1.65 ERA in 76.33 IP) Rene Rivera -32 (.169/0 HR/.231 SLG/0 net def/65 AB) Christian Bergman 54 (1.99 ERA in 22.67 IP) Daniel Fields -4 (.091/0 HR/.091 SLG/1 net def/11 AB) Jake McGee 0 (0 IP) Total: 218
TBR gets:Bartolo Colon -72 (6.16 ERA in 57.00 IP) LaTroy Hawkins 0 (0 IP) Nick Hundley -28 (.228/3 HR/.354 SLG/2 net def/158 AB) Scott Oberg 0 (0 IP) Tim Wheeler 0 (0 AB) Total: -100

You really gotta feel for Pittsburgh for the rotten luck they had in this trade; hopefully, with Peavy and Pence off the DL they’ll get something for them soon:

SFG gets:A.J. Burnett 152 (2.52 ERA in 121.67 IP) Andrew McCutchen 42 (.290/9 HR/.546 SLG/5 net def/183 AB) Total: 194
PIT gets:Jake Peavy 0 (0 IP) Hunter Pence 0 (0 AB) Total: 0

Houston wins the award for the best exchange of sub-par players; everyone involved in the trade is doing below-average but the acquired players are less bad than the ones shipped out (although it’s a little misleading since Rasmus was immediately included in another multi-player deal):

SDP gets:Sam Deduno -44 (6.11 ERA in 35.33 IP) Evan Gattis -75 (.234/10 HR/.433 SLG/-16 net def/252 AB) Colby Rasmus 0 (0 AB) Total: -119
HOU gets:Wil Myers -27 (.251/4 HR/.400 SLG/0 net def/175 AB) Derek Norris -46 (.251/5 HR/.398 SLG/-1 net def/299 AB) Dale Thayer 15 (2.91 ERA in 21.67 IP) Total: -58

The teams with the best total net gain in value through trades are: Rockies, Giants, Astros, Tigers, Nationals and Bosox.  There are only 5 additional teams with a positive net gain and they are the Marlins, Dodgers, .Mariners, Braves, and Rangers.

Trade value details:  Pitcher formula: LgERA/ERA * outs recorded.  Batter formula: 1 pt for BB, SB, lose 1 for CS, 2 pts for single, HSP, -2 for E or bad play, 3 pts for 2B, 4 for 3B, 5 for HR. Divided by league avg per AB times AB.  Net def = net defense, hit saving plays – bad plays – errors.  Note that negative values indicate a below-average performance relative to the league averages.

COMMENTARY: If you were wondering whether the Met problems were pitching or hitting, 2 of their 3 wins this week were 1-0…so was one of their 3 losses…Every NL division leader went 5-1….The Brewers went 4-2 and are now +3 WOR…Miami leads the NL east with +7 WOR….the actual AL East is crazy tight but Baltimore is making it look easy and went 6-0 last week, the only perfect mark in the league…every AL division leader had 5 wins or more…Seattle leads the AL with +6 WOR…Houston is the only division leader that isn’t playing .600 or better…they moved into a dead tie with Seattle last week…Buster Posey hit .500 and led the ASFBL with 14 RBI last week…Jay Bruce hit .393 but struck out 8 times….Andrew Romine hit .478 for Detroit…Miami bullpen has allowed only 7% of runners to score…Carter Capps stranded 5 last week…Jaime Garcia pitched 18 scorelees innings for the Cards…Joe Blanton threw 16 for Kansas City.

Hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend!

FEATS AND FAILRES:

Mike Trout of LAA struck out 5 times against HOU on 6/22/2015
Johnny Giavotella of LAA struck out 4 times against HOU on 6/22/2015
Domingo Santana of HOU struck out 5 times against LAA on 6/22/2015
Preston Tucker of HOU struck out 4 times against LAA on 6/22/2015
Hank Conger of HOU struck out 4 times against LAA on 6/22/2015
Noah Syndergaard of NYM had 16 strikeouts against MIL on 6/23/2015
Nevin Ashley of MIL struck out 4 times against NYM on 6/23/2015
Eugenio Suarez of CIN had 5 hits against PIT on 6/23/2015
Nelson Cruz of SEA struck out 4 times against KCR on 6/23/2015
Brett Gardner of NYY robbed 3 hits against PHI on 6/24/2015
Bryce Harper of WAS struck out 4 times against ATL on 6/24/2015
Zack Greinke of LAD had 10 strikeouts against CHC on 6/24/2015
Kris Bryant of CHC struck out 4 times against LAD on 6/24/2015
Jay Bruce of CIN struck out 4 times against PIT on 6/24/2015
Alex Gordon of KCR struck out 4 times against OAK on 6/26/2015
Nolan Arenado of CIN robbed 3 hits against NYM on 6/27/2015
Tucker Barnhart of CIN had 5 hits against NYM on 6/27/2015
Carlos Correa of HOU had 7 RBI against NYY on 6/28/2015
Joe Blanton of KCR had 13 strikeouts against OAK on 6/28/2015
Chris Sale of CWS had 13 strikeouts against DET on 6/28/2015